erinja:
I think this is part of the reason that Esperanto speakers don't usually respond well to criticisms of the language.

Everything you've described makes Esperanto looks like a sect rather than a language community.

- Criticism are not welcomed and people automatically assume that if you have some reservations towards it, it's because you're a beginner or ignorant. (Raelians use exactly the same argument).
- Very conservative about changes.
- Weird emotionnal attachment to the language.
- An underlying philosophy behind the language. A "way of life". A sense of community. Etc.

If it makes people happy... Fine. I'm only arguing that, in my opinion, Esperanto shouldn't become *the* IAL, as it was intented to be. For people who say it already is, clearly we're not arguing about the same thing.

It's clear it's mostly a matter of opinion. Someone could argue it should or shouldn't be Mandarin, or whatever. I didn't intend to argue anyway, that's just my point of view. Bye.

RiotNrrd:Which means "it's obvious" stands a good chance of being actually wrong.

Well even for Z. himself, it was obvious Esperanto needed some changes. Or maybe he was wrong too?

Well, go to a French language forum and start criticizing French, and see what happens. Does that mean there's a French "sect"?

(And, as I understand it, there're a lot of people who believe that French really SHOULD be the world IAL - mostly French speakers, as it turns out, but there you go)

Some newcomers to Esperanto seem to believe that Esperanto is an IAL proposal, and that therefore criticisms of its construction are of value. In fact, Esperanto has been in use for over a century, its form is already solidly in place, and therefore criticisms of its construction are as pointless as criticisms of French are. It is what it is, and it must be accepted or rejected on that basis alone.

I personally don't care if some government somewhere or other decides to officially accept it as an IAL. I use it as an IAL, it works fine for me, and therefore from a purely practical standpoint it is ok just as it is.

djeepywta:Well even for Z. himself, it was obvious Esperanto needed some changes. Or maybe he was wrong too?

He collected the various proposals for reform and put them up for a vote of the Esperanto community, which soundly rejected all of them.

It is not clear that Z. stood behind these proposals, even though he put them up for a vote. He did say that if the Esperanto community were to accept any of them, that he would support their decision (which is not quite the same thing).

So, no, I don't think that Z. himself believed that it was "obvious" Esperanto needed some changes. Clearly it didn't, since all of the proposed changes were rejected by the community (who, one would expect, were just as capable of seeing the obvious as anyone).

RiotNrrd:Well, go to a French language forum and start criticizing French, and see what happens. Does that mean there's a French "sect"?

Actually French is my native language and I have no problem admitting "la conjugaison des verbes" is hell, that it's awfully irregular and a pain to learn it fully well. I would by far prefer English as an international language.

I don't think people actually that have that emotional attachment to their native language to the point of being annoyed when people mention the weaknesses, difficulties, flaws, etc.

djeepywta:
- Criticism are not welcomed and people automatically assume that if you have some reservations towards it, it's because you're a beginner or ignorant. (Raelians use exactly the same argument).

People are welcome not to like Esperanto. They are welcome to move on and study another language instead, if they don't like it. But as RiotNrrd already noted, at this point the language is what it is and it would be counterproductive to change it.

- Very conservative about changes.

Wow. I think this would apply to pretty much all languages that have some kind of governing institution. I think that Académie Française could be considered quite conservative about changes. But as RiotNrrd mentioned, I don't think you would consider French speakers a cult.

Plus, the kinds of changes you seem to be suggesting are not simple issues of vocabulary. If someone came up to the Esperanto community and said "Perhaps gxingxero would be a better word than zingibro to mean 'ginger'" the issue would be discussed and the individual speakers would decide whether that change made sense or not, and act accordingly. If you went up to the Académie Française and told them "French spelling is incredibly difficult and needs to be changed, plus some of your words are incredibly ugly, plus I really don't like your plural forms, and by the way your verbs are way too complicated and should be simplified", I think you'd be laughed out of the room. Individual French speakers would probably even agree with you on some of your points (I have seen plenty of discussion of the difficulty of French spelling within lernu!'s French forum). At this point, French is what it is, and to make major changes to French grammar, you would basically be rewriting the language, plus all of the old French literature would suddenly become invalid.

- Weird emotionnal attachment to the language.

No more than my weird emotional attachment to English or any other language I speak. Languages have a special power. Foreign travel is incredibly difficult if you don't speak the local language and the people in that country don't speak your language. I'm a fairly pragmatic person, not very given to idealism. But Esperanto has provided me a lot of opportunities to meet people I wouldn't otherwise have met and travel to places where I don't speak the language, with the help of a local native speaker. I feel the same thing with relation to other languages - I think that studying Italian has been so useful in travelling to Italy and understanding aspects of their culture, and even with my very basic-level French, I've already been enjoying reading the posts at lernu!'s French forum. It's a basic curiosity about the world and an interest in learning what various cultures say about themselves, in their own languages.

- An underlying philosophy behind the language. A "way of life". A sense of community. Etc.

Isn't this true for most things people occupy themselves with? Let's say someone loves birds. They go to ornithology conferences, they meet regularly with local bird-watchers, they write bird-watching websites, they read books about birds, and when they go abroad, local bird-watchers show them their local birds. I think a sense of community is a normal thing when a group of people spend significant time doing something.

And whether you like it or not, Esperanto does have an underlying philosophy. It's the same underlying philosophy that all "universal languages" have - that if all people learned the same easy-to-learn second language, that worldwide communication would improve and we would all be better off for it. Right? There are certainly constructed languages that don't believe in this, but they don't bill themselves as being IALs. I wouldn't call it a way of life, it's just a philosophy. Not all Esperanto speakers believe in it. But I think most Esperanto speakers agree that the world would be better off if we all spoke a second language, in addition to our native language, and used that second language to communicate. It's my impression that you believe this too, or else you wouldn't have spent so much effort trying to prove that Esperanto is not the right language for this purpose.

If it makes people happy... Fine. I'm only arguing that, in my opinion, Esperanto shouldn't become *the* IAL, as it was intented to be. For people who say it already is, clearly we're not arguing about the same thing.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion that Esperanto is not an ideal world language. I think that people don't really care that much if you think Esperanto is the wrong language to be used as an IAL. Plenty of Esperanto speakers surely have the same opinion. I think they were opposed to your suggestions that the language be changed, and felt that your arguments were not very well supported.

djeepywta:
I don't think people actually that have that emotional attachment to their native language to the point of being annoyed when people mention the weaknesses, difficulties, flaws, etc.

Discussing flaws is one thing. I have heard many such conversations among Esperanto speakers. But suggesting wholesale changes to the basic grammar is something else.

Plus my experience has been is that French speakers, or governments at least, are quite protective of their language. I would call that an emotional attachment. I have seen this recently in the EU, where French politicians are pushing quite hard for a larger role for French within the EU.

and felt that your arguments were not very well supported.

Admitelly they weren't, but anyway I was thinking flaws as "flaws for an IAL" and not "flaws that make the language worthless", so I think there might be a bit of misunderstanding as well.

As a language itself, I don't think it needs to be reformed, it's doing just fine. (Okay I do think the j ending is ugly, but I'm willing to admit that's my subjective opinion). All my opinion is really centered about the perspective of a language used internationnaly and supported by most governments.

djeepywta:All my opinion is really centered about the perspective of a language used internationnaly and supported by most governments.

I don't think that we're likely to see any constructed IAL attain worldwide support by governmental bodies anytime soon. Not because of any flaws in the language, but more because of politics. Language is part of the political landscape. Everybody would like their own language to become the "international language" because that confers a great deal of advantage onto them and their culture - so what politicians are going to push a language other than that of their constituents?

English sits in the sweet spot right now, but its position as the default international language will probably change again one day, as have all the others before it. If China really gets moving economically (which it looks like they are), and the US experiences some long-term economic difficulties (which it always could), Mandarin might be the next must-know language.

Of course, China might decide that although the Chinese grammar is very simple, the pronunciation and writing system is very difficult for the rest of the world, and that it might be in their best interests to instead require that all business done with them be in Esperanto. As a totalitarian society, they could very well make a decision like that which other, freer, societies could not. The ruling class waves its hand, and a year later you have a billion Esperanto speakers inside China, and a whole class of businessmen outside China studying Ana Pana.

I'm not saying that is a likely scenario, of course. I think that it is wildly unlikely, in fact. But you never know.

djeepywta:

T0dd:
The problem is the absence of arguments for your claims. It's hard to debate a point (see title of this thread) without arguments.

Maybe... But I think my claims rely on common sense enough that they're both claims and arguments. If I say "ses" and "sep" are too similar, what more can I add? To me this is an argument by itself, it doesn't need any more justification.

It may be an argument "to you," but the truth is that a statement asserted without reasons is not an argument. I take it you mean that these words are "too similar" in a noisy environment. But here you've put me in a position of having to guess what you're argument might be. That's pointless.

Why would an IAL have unusual letters? I can't possibly have an argument to support that, this is just too obvious.

If it's obvious then it should be simple to give an argument. This IAL has diacritics to preserve two things: one-sound, one-letter correspondence (no digraphs); and recognizability of words without resorting to exact homophones. It's not a perfect solution, I'll be the first to admit.

As awake pointed out, Esperanto is *already functioning* as an IAL, not just a hobby. It's not anywhere near as widely used as English, of course, but it's not clear that that has anything to do with its plural marker, alphabet, or anything of the sort.

It still remains basically a hobby. If you want to speak with an Eo speaker, if you want to find an Eo book, etc you really have to make a clear effort. It's not even close to be an "effective" IAL. If I go to any country, it will be way way way easier to find an English speaker than an Eo speaker.

You're confusing what the language is with the reasons why people learn it. Esperanto *is* an international auxiliary language, for the simple reason that it is (a) international, (b) auxiliary, and (c) a language. As to whether it's "effective," that all depends on what you're trying to do. I agree that just about anywhere you go, it'll be easier to find an English speaker than an Esperanto speaker. On the other hand, it may not be so easy to find an English speaker who wants to get to know you, show you places in his or her part of the world, or just chat. For that sort of thing, Esperanto's "smallness" and its unique culture makes it more effective than English.

It's not more popular because well... I think the question should be: "why should we consider Eo at all for IAL?", rather than "should Eo become the IAL?".

Both questions are flawed by the assumption that there isn't, but should be, some single language that is "the IAL." English is an IAL. French is an IAL. Spanish is an IAL, and so on. And of course, as already pointed out, Esperanto is an IAL. We might well ask why it isn't a more popular IAL. If you have an argument that it's because of its plural marker or its alphabet, then by all means give it.